The Care and Keeping of a Well-Made Bomb
by Khebidecia
Summary: A lesson in shipping and handling in which almost nothing is accomplished.


Disclaimers: I do not own _Hogan's Heroes_ , _CFR 49_ , _IATA_ , or _IMDG_. Those last three are the guides used by HAZMAT shippers to properly ship hazardous materials/dangerous goods. _CFR 49_ is United States specific, but the three are very similar in general. I am certified to ship hazardous material/dangerous goods, but my job has never required me to ship explosives, so I did not try to go into specific details because 1) this story is not intended to teach people how to ship hazardous materials/dangerous goods and 2) I did not want to give myself a bad headache just so I could bore you all with miniscule details. Also, for the details I did mention, I used _CFR 49_ , which is both anachronistic and not a guide for Europe.

Author's Note: Many thanks to Katbybee for beta reading this story. She helped considerably as my original ending was far too vaguely worded. Thankfully she was able to help me come up with a way to make the end understandable while still being the idea of the original one. She also helped me check that I was putting in the right amount of detail.

* * *

"Hey, Carter," Kinch called out to his fellow sergeant, "London just radioed that they sent something special for you in this airdrop. They said they expect you to study it and use it if the situation ever comes up."

It was unusual for London to send something to a specific person except in the event of a direct request, and both men knew none had been made recently. Carter furrowed his brow a bit, wondering what this mysterious object was. "I guess they came up with a new bomb design they think I could use," he finally decided.

"Maybe," Kinch nodded his agreement, watching as excitement slowly built within Carter. He hoped his friend would get a chance to use London's special gift soon. It would undoubtedly put him in good spirits, which was always entertaining.

Little did either man know the grim truth of London's "gift." Even when LeBeau and Newkirk returned with something very different from a bomb design did they fail to guess how utterly grueling this thing would make Carter's life. As for Carter himself, he took the thick book excitedly, gave a small frown as he flipped through it without seeing any bomb designs, and stuffed it behind some much more useful items in his lab. With a sense of foreboding, he vainly hoped that he would never need to crack it open again.

Unfortunately for him, life sometimes has an absolutely cruel sense of humor.

* * *

"Okay, men, gather around," Hogan instructed his team a few months later. "This one's not going to be too hard, but I want you all to pay attention."

"What, do we have to go through Klink's safe again?" asked Newkirk, thinking back to the week before when the Kommandant hadn't even managed to close the door all the way.

"No, not this time. This one is for the underground. One of their branches a few hours' drive away needs to blow up a bridge, but they ran out of explosives. Their usual supply lines were disrupted a few weeks ago, and they don't know when they can be reestablished. One of Little Bo Peep's Lost Sheep found out and gave me the specs on the bridge. Carter, think you can get a bomb ready for them?"

Carter took the sheet the Colonel held out to him and read it over. It did not seem like a particularly challenging bridge, but it would take at least two bombs to destroy it fully.

"You got it, Boy, I mean Sir. I can have this ready in two or three days, if nothing else comes up."

"Good. Kinch, let the underground know they can send their courier in three days."

"Will do. Say, Carter, here's your chance to use that book London sent you."

Carter was about to ask him what book he meant, but then the memory suddenly returned to him. He felt his heart sink at the thought of having to go through the thing he'd hidden in the back of his lab, but he knew he had to do it unless he wanted to disobey a direct order from London. Furthermore, it was too late to tell Hogan he couldn't make the bomb. So he decided to put his best face on it and forced on a smile, channeling his daydreams of "accidentally" blowing up that ridiculous brick of a book.

* * *

A day and a half later, the bombs were complete. There was only a day until the courier from the underground arrived to take the bombs, and Carter hoped this whole thing proved less daunting than it seemed. He hefted the book out of its hiding place and set it on the table in front of him, looking at it askance as it landed with a noise somewhere between a thud and a plop. That did not bode well. Nearly everyone else was already asleep, but he decided he may as well look the thing over before turning in himself.

An hour later, Carter was still at it, staring at the tiny print and trying to make sense of the dry, government instruction guide for the packaging and shipping of hazardous materials. "CFR 49," he groaned to himself, "I'll bet that was a prediction of how many hours it would take to finish one shipment!" He really hoped that was not true, since he had to be ready in under twenty-four, but the longer he read, the more he thought that the government was being optimistic by limiting it to forty-nine.

With a sigh he reached of a new piece of paper, hoping to make sense of this latest sentence. Apparently hazard class 1.1 was somehow different from hazard class 1.2 after all.

* * *

The next morning, the residents of Barracks Two awoke to find that Carter was still absent, with roll call only a few minutes away.

"I'll go get 'im, then," Newkirk decided as he headed down into the tunnel. "He probably just got tired and fell asleep downstairs." When Newkirk reached the lab, however, he found Carter still awake and looking miserable. He was staring intently at a book thicker than a Bible with one hand poised to scrawl on one of their precious pieces of paper. When Newkirk looked around the lab, he saw that there were used papers littered everywhere.

"Carter, mate, there's a roll call in ten minutes if you care to join us."

Carter jolted up and stared at him with eyes wide that reminded Newkirk more of a person trying desperately to stay awake rather than a person actually awake. "Why's there a roll call in the middle of the night?"

"Because the Krauts like to call it early morning, that's why."

To his credit, Carter had the decency to come without further protest, but it was clear to all that he had spent a horrible night. He kept muttering things like "there isn't enough time" and "those people in London are just crazy." As Schultz walked around counting them, he paused and looked at Carter compassionately.

"You do not look so good. Not nightmares, I hope?"

"One big long nightmare that just won't stop." His downtrodden look was more than enough to give the guard pause.

"Perhaps some warm milk will help you sleep peacefully like a little child."

"And where do you think he's going to get some of that?" asked Newkirk irritably.

"There is some in the guard's mess, just like there may be some strudel later on, _ja_?"

"Fine, fine, I will see what I can do," came LeBeau's reply. Carter did look awful and maybe Schultz's suggestion would help.

Carter on the other hand was anything but happy with the suggestion. He only had eighteen hours to finish the shipment according to the government regulations, and the last thing he needed now was to go to sleep.

At last roll call was over, and the men headed back into their barracks. "Okay, Carter, how's the project?" Hogan asked, and the way he said it made Carter know beyond a doubt that there was no point in hiding anything, even if he'd had the energy.

"The bombs are ready," he explained. "It's those new transport regulations from London that are impossible."

"They need to make sure everything is packed right so the bombs don't go off by mistake," Kinch said, trying to be a voice of reason. But Carter already knew that, which was why he had tried so hard to make them work, and why he was so frustrated when he failed to figure them out.

"We've moved bombs before with no trouble," he said, hoping against all hope that the Colonel would decide to wave regulations just this once. "There's no way I'm going to finish on time if I have to figure out what all those rules mean. I mean, there are rules about how many boxes a certain amount of dynamite needs to be packed in, and rules about what the boxes need to be made out of, and rules about how much stuff needs to stay safe when you test drop the box from a certain height, and rules about how much you can put in a box compared to the amount that the box was tested with. And those are just the rules about the boxes. There are more about what the bombs need to be packed with, how to seal the boxes, and what the margins of the paperwork need to look like! I just can't do it, Colonel. Not by tonight."

Hogan looked at him intently for a few moments, taking in his exhausted state. "Alright," he said. Here's what we'll do. Olsen, go find anyone with experience reading American and British legal documents and regulations. LeBeau, go have anyone who knows carpentry start building boxes. Newkirk, go get the book."

The men instantly did as they were told, and Kinch turned quietly to Hogan. "Are you sure we want the book up here? If the Krauts come in, they may find it."

"They may, but if Carter's experience can tell us anything, it's that they'll never read it. Besides, the only way we'll pull this off is by having multiple people read it, and since we only have one book, we'll have to tear it into smaller sections. If anyone comes in, we'll just call it arts and crafts."

* * *

The next few hours were hard on all. Some people thought that Carter had exaggerated when he said that some sentences took half an hour to decipher, but once those who had to read the book found themselves diagramming endless complex sentences, they found that he spoke true. The boxes were easier to make, but they had to find the right supplies and make two boxes for each bomb. Carter was supremely fortunate that dynamite in the bombs did not exceed the maximum allowed quantities for a non-bulk package. Even Hogan did not think he could pull off getting the massive tank required for bulk transport out of camp.

Later, after their coffee was already greatly depleted, they even had to call in several artists to draw diamond shapes (of a specific size) that said EXPLOSIVE in them with a picture of a bomb going off on the outer boxes. Overall, it was a day no one wanted to repeat. Even Schultz picked up on the mood and left them alone after dropping off a small portion of milk for Carter, who was still trying to supervise the whole process. After all, if it went wrong, his signature would be on the final paperwork and therefore he would be the one held accountable.

But at last they managed to pack the bombs according to regulations to the best of their abilities. They had only minutes to spare before the underground courier arrived.

* * *

The next morning, LeBeau made his way down into the tunnels to bring Kinch some coffee. They did not have much left after yesterday, but he figured his friend needed it as he was monitoring the radio that day. But as he walked into the room, he noticed two strange things. The first was that André's boxes were still there, a sad testament to the previous evening. The second was the look on Kinch's face as he stared at a note in his hand.

"What is it?" he asked.

"The Underground just thanked us for blowing up the bridge last night."

"But André's bombs are still here, and no one left the compound last night."

"The courier showed up last night and said that his services do not allow him to carry hazard class 1.1."

Just then Carter dropped down the ladder and headed for his lab, sending a dark glare in the direction of the boxes. As they watched him pass, an icy chill washed over them.

"Do you remember the time Andrew said he had no idea what would happen if he ever really got angry?"

" _Oui_."

"I think we just found out."


End file.
